The far-right is playing Russian Roulette with Europe's democracy, the European Greens have said today as they launched the website russianroulette.info that illustrates connections between European far-right politicians and Putin’s Russia.
The Greens launched the website on the same day as the far-right Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary, where politicians from the European People’s Party (EPP), the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) share the stage with the son of Brazil's former autocratic president Jair Bolsonaro, Trump aides, and Spain's far-right Vox leader Santiago Abascal.
Another speaker at the conference was the American ‘king of fake news’ Jack Posobiec, who recently called to overthrow American democracy. Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán gave the opening speech and far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders is set to speak at CPAC. The organisers rejected mainstream media outlets’ accreditation requests citing a “no woke zone”.
European Greens lead candidate Terry Reintke said: “This event shows that Europe’s far right no longer want to leave the European Union, but have something more radical in mind: to destroy it from within. We stand firm for our democracies, and against the far right and their autocratic backers. We will not allow the far-right to play Russian Roulette with Europe’s democracy”.
European Greens lead candidate Bas Eickhout: "Hearing Dutch far-right 'influencer' Eva Vlaardingerbroek oppose financial support for Ukraine and say that 'the totalitarian institute of the European Union must fall' is a stunning example of how Russia and the far-right are working in a poisonous tango to destroy European democracy. The European people will be the victims of this plan. We continue to work to expose all the links between the European far right and foreign autocrats”.
The website russianroulette.info details which politicians are allegedly connected to Russia – in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and more countries. The last weeks have been full of revelations and investigations on close ties and potentially even financial relations between Europe’s far right and Putin’s Russia. Many of the CPAC-speakers have been featured on the Russian propaganda outlet ‘Voice of Europe’ in recent years which is under investigation by authorities in the Czech Republic.